


just one of those days

by heartsfilthylesson



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-22 15:39:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4840976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartsfilthylesson/pseuds/heartsfilthylesson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Scully.”  He hears every day Scully sounds in the background: running water, metal clinking against glass and soft music he can’t identify. He doesn’t want to think of what will happen when she’s too weak to do these things and too proud to ask for help but does so anyway. He prompts again when the pause stretches on too long. “Scully?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	just one of those days

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this on my tumblr for the prompt "msr -just fuck me up" but I originally intended this to be the beginning of something longer.

**  
**The phone rings and his heart jumps. It presses up into his rib cage and past three layers of skin, stealing the breath from his lungs. Phone calls used to be exciting, full of possibilities: a stranger’s voice, a new lead, a mysterious tip. Now, he’s come to fear who will be on the other end of the line. Maggie Scully, perhaps, a slight catch in her voice, urging him to rush to the hospital. He presses call and expects the worst. **  
**

“Mulder, it’s me.” The words are rushed but they comfort him and he can almost breathe again.

“Scully.”  He hears every day Scully sounds in the background: running water, metal clinking against glass and soft music he can’t identify. He doesn’t want to think of what will happen when she’s too weak to do these things and too proud to ask for help but does so anyway. He prompts again when the pause stretches on too long. “Scully?”

“Sorry,” she says, and she must be in front of the sink, phone cradled between her shoulder and ear, yellow rubber gloves up to her elbows. “I need to ask you something.”

Mulder catches her uncertainty through miles and miles of telephone lines, feels it thrum against his ear and into his bones. “Sure.”

She clears her throat. The music is louder now. Annie Lennox, perhaps. “A favour.”

There’s nothing he wouldn’t do for her but he knows better than to say that. Instead, he mumbles something that could be _alright_ and listens.  

“Can you meet me tomorrow at eight?” she asks and he mumbles another agreement. “I’ll explain then.”

It’s only nine pm and he spends the next ten hours wide awake on his sofa wondering what Scully needs.

* * *

She’s outside his building at 7:55 am, fingers tight on the steering wheel and a strained smile on her face. The car smells like it’s just been cleaned, like heavy detergent and green apple dashboard polish. The scent is suffocating and Mulder wonders if it does not bother her. He almost asks but remembers she most likely can’t smell it: loss of olfaction is in the long list of chemotherapy side effects.

“Do you want to get breakfast?” He nods and watches her switch gears from the corner of his eye.

Saturday morning traffic is light and he doesn’t have much time to theorise where Scully might be taking him before they stop at a diner. They’ve been here before, near the beginning, when she wasn’t as thin and her hair wasn’t as red, when she was still just his partner and not his everything.

Scully orders fruit and wholemeal toast she barely touches; he gets eggs and pancakes and, at her insistence, clears both their plates.

“I couldn’t ask mom,” she starts without warning and he sits up straighter, leans slightly forward. Scully isn’t looking at him, instead staring at something behind him. The sepia picture of the Chesapeake Bay near the entrance, perhaps. He can tell the next words are harder because her mouth opens and closes several times before she finally speaks. “But I couldn’t do it alone, either.”

The waitress refills their chipped mugs as the air grows stagnant with silence.

“I need you to help me plan my funeral.” Her lips are pressed into a tight line but she sounds so casual she could be asking him to drive her to the airport or for help with her taxes or something people who aren’t them do for each other. It’s so ridiculous he laughs and spills coffee on his Oxford blue shirt and the formica table.

He wants to say no  because doesn’t have her strength and he doesn’t have her will and he has never been this afraid before.

“Yeah,” he tells her instead and wipes at the wet stains blooming across his chest with a paper napkin. “Of course I’ll help.”


End file.
